


Arthur's Room of Requirement

by Just_a_Fangirl



Series: Everyone Pick Their Favourite Tune [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Pottertalia, Room of Requirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4476998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_a_Fangirl/pseuds/Just_a_Fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Part of the 'Everyone Pick Their Favourite Tune' series - 16 Pottertalia fics of all the different Hogwarts House combinations for USUK. This one is Slytherin!Arthur and Hufflepuff!Alfred.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Arthur's Room of Requirement

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the 'Everyone Pick Their Favourite Tune' series - 16 Pottertalia fics of all the different Hogwarts House combinations for USUK. This one is Slytherin!Arthur and Hufflepuff!Alfred.

In an old wizarding family like the Kirklands, it only made sense that someone would have heard of the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, and passed down the secret to their favourite relatives.

Unfortunately for Arthur, he was nobody’s favourite relative. He only knew about the room because an older cousin bragged about it to him once when he was little. The rumour of a magical dream room captured Arthur’s interest, and it took him five years of favours and bribery before he got all the information he needed to open it.

When he finally tried it out for himself when he arrived at Hogwarts, he hadn’t really been thinking of anything in particular as he walked back and forth in front of the blank stone wall. He only remembered how much work he’d had to put in to find out about the room, and hoping it made up for all the agonising years of sucking up to his cousins and brothers.

So it was only natural that the Room of Requirement would present itself as a secret hideaway just for Arthur. He’d never had his own room before, never had any privacy or a place all to himself – and now that he was at Hogwarts it was even worse! The sanctuary this room provided for him was just what Arthur had always wanted, and the moment he stepped inside, it felt like coming home.

The walls were lined with bookshelves and interesting trinkets, and the ceiling was decorated with a mural of the adventures of Merlin, Arthur’s personal hero. A variety of comfy chairs were on offer – from a wingback leather seat to a woven hanging-chair dangling invitingly in the centre. But best of all was the window seat. The room had magically created a big round window, with a view that slowly circled the entire castle, and stretching the length of the window, looking almost like a bed, was a deep window seat covered in soft blankets and pillows.

It was perfect.

As the years went by and his essays and exams got harder, Arthur spent more and more time retreating to the Room of Requirement. He never told a soul about it, but it was only natural that somebody else out of the hundreds of students must have heard of the magical room.

It wasn’t until Arthur’s fifth year that he finally ran into anyone, though.

Arthur was nestled snugly amongst the cushions on the window seat reading a Muggle novel when he heard an unfamiliar creaking. A heavy, strained groan shattered the peace of his sanctuary and he looked up, startled to see the door opening inwards.

Arthur stared, frozen in place, as Alfred F. Jones, a fifth-year Hufflepuff, stepped into his Room of Requirement.

“What the…” Alfred muttered, glancing around in confusion at the bookshelves. He didn’t seem to have noticed Arthur, but as Alfred turned to look at the round window, the boys’ eyes met through the latticework of the woven hanging chair that was suspended between them, and Arthur knew he’d been spotted.

“Um…hello. This is the Room of Requirement,” he said politely, wondering how best to ask Alfred to bugger off.

“Yeah…I know,” the American replied. “One of the Professors told me about it. He said it would _ooooooooh_!”

Arthur quirked an eyebrow as Alfred trailed off into amazed silence, his cerulean eyes wide with realisation.

“That is _so cool_! I didn’t realise it could make _people_ , too!”

“I’m sorry?” Arthur asked, confused.

Alfred finally moved closer, rounding the hanging chair to stand in front of Arthur. He bent down to the other’s eye level, and then leaned forward till they were almost nose to nose. Arthur shrank back in embarrassment, blushing.

“ _Excuse_ me!” the Slytherin boy cried, indignantly.

“You look _amazing_! Can I touch you?”

“ _WHAT_?!” Arthur spluttered, scrambling back even further to press himself against the wall.

Alfred just crowded in closer, eyes roaming all over Arthur’s face and body. He reached out and put a hand on Arthur’s knee, and his eyes lit up.

“This is incredible!”

Arthur opened his mouth to snap out a retort, but then Alfred smiled. Not his usual glistening, toothy grin, but such a sweet, warm look that it took Arthur by surprise and stole the words from his tongue.

“I didn’t know what to expect but this room is so _you_. And I can’t believe you’re actually _here_! And so lifelike! This is…”

As suddenly as Alfred’s smile had appeared, it was gone. The Hufflepuff boy’s shoulders tensed, the sparkle in his eyes dimming to a guarded look, and the smile slowly fading from his lips into a serious frown that didn’t suit him.

“This is dangerous magic,” Alfred lamented. “It's all so perfect, but…it’s not real. If I stay here, I'll never wanna go back to reality, and I can’t just choose this over the real Arthur…”

Arthur’s indignation finally burst out of him at Alfred’s strange ramblings.

“I _AM_ real!”

“…What.” Alfred blinked, bemused.

Arthur’s eyebrows scrucnhed up in frustration and confusion. “I was sitting here minding my own business and reading and you just barged in saying… _mental_ things!”

A dawning look of horror melted onto Alfred’s face. He stood, unmoving, still nose to nose with Arthur, his hand still resting on the Slytherin’s knee.

“What…what did you _think_ was happening?!” Arthur demanded.

“I! …I thought! …”

Finally, Alfred jolted back to life, stumbling backwards away from Arthur, eyes darting everywhere but at the boy on the window seat. His face was bright red and if Arthur had been reading this scene in a book he’d have understood what it meant. But experiencing it for himself he just couldn’t quite grasp it.

He sat upright, glare fierce as he stared down the poor Hufflepuff.

“The professor told me this room was magic and would turn into whatever you want,” Alfred babbled.

“Exactly!” Arthur exclaimed. “You should have known this couldn’t be _your_ dream room because why would _I_ be in your Room of Requirement?!”

In the split second it took Alfred’s eyes to glance up and meet his, Arthur understood the answer to his question.

“Oh. Well, then…” he faltered.

An awkward pause followed, and Arthur found himself standing up and busily folding blankets and arranging the cushions on the window seat.

“I suppose I can leave if you want to have a look at your real Room of Requirement. Or…if you’d like…”

The words were out before Arthur could stop them, and he couldn’t take them back now. Besides, Alfred looked so devastated after his embarrassing mistake that Arthur wanted to take pity on him. It wasn’t like he was doing this for the Hufflepuff boy, it was just matter of politeness.

“You could stay here and…hang out?”

(In hindsight, he should have realised the danger of sharing his Room of Requirement with Alfred. Sadly, it only occurred to him five minutes later, when the Hufflepuff boy spotted the portraits of himself scattered along the bookshelves and asked Arthur why there were dozens of pictures of him in the Slytherin’s dream room.)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in September 2014, as part of the 365daysofusuk calendar on tumblr. Also a birthday fic for seecarrun on tumblr.


End file.
